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Biography

Joanne Simpson had already established herself as an independent-minded person by the age of 14, when she decided that, "No matter what happened, I was going to put myself in the position to make my own living, and to provide for whatever children I might have without having to depend on anybody else." This approach virtually guided the rest of her life, as she faced and successfully dealt with women's issues at a time when women were almost uniformly treated as second-class citizens, much more so than is found today.

Dr. Simpson chose to attend the University of Chicago for undergraduate work, as a form of rebellion against the "'Eastern Seaboard Syndrome' where young ladies of prep schools went to one of the Seven Sisters girls' colleges" like Radcliffe, she says. Her career at Chicago started out with a focus on political and social sciences, but took a radical change in direction with her involvement in a flying club and her lifelong penchant for sailing. Both these activities involve close attention to weather, and so rather than leave college to enlist in the military as she wanted, she found herself involved in the World War II meteorology training programs for aviation cadets. It was at this time that she began to find obstacles to women in professional fields.

As her fascination with meteorology continued to grow, so did her frustration with the problems associated with being a woman on this virtually all-male playing field. Fortuitous exposure to several open-minded, male, world-class scientists combined with her indomitable will and fierce self-confidence allowed her access to several opportunities that resulted in a continuous rise in the groves of academe and research. These culminated in her seeking and finding a position at Goddard in 1979 on a 1-year leave from a faculty position at the University of Virginia; that 1-year leave became 2. And then there came a possibility for a third year here. At that point, the University of Virginia said, basically, "Come back, or lose your position." Finding things much more to her liking at Goddard, where she found kindred spirits and many more opportunities than were available at Virginia, Dr. Simpson chose to stay, and has been at Goddard ever since, staying longer than she had in any other position.

"Moving every 710 years to a new environment is very stimulating and very important," she says about the way young (in their 40's) scientists move about these days. She fits this model, too, as she had spent 57 years at each of several universities, and spent 10 years at NOAA. She has spent the past 11 years as project scientist on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) but, she says, "...that's long enough." When TRMM, which is currently undergoing thermal vacuum and other prelaunch testing, lifts off in 1997, she will turn over her duties to Dr. Chris Kummerow and pay more attention to her other activities, which include her duties as an officer in the American Meteorological Society, getting back to research, writing review articles, and dealing with young people.

Working with young people is important to her. While she says she's pretty burned out on teaching large classes, she still finds great enjoyment and rewards in working with students on a research basis. In addition, as a world-class scientist Dr. Simpson is often called upon as a role model for young people, especially women. This is a role that she's been happy to play for many years, but, she says, "I have carried the burden of being a role model for women for so many years that I decided 5 or 10 years ago that since there are now so many brilliant young women who have won awards who are in their 40's and 50's, that I have simply retired from being a role model. It's somebody else's turn now."

That doesn't stop her from being responsive, however. In the midst of her myriad activities, Dr. Simpson still finds time to respond to a request by a sixth-grade girl who, "...wanted to know how I got into meteorology, and what careers were available, and so on. Tricia [Gregory; Dr. Simpson's administrative assistant] and I have sent her a lot of information, and I wrote her an E-mail answering as many of her questions as I had time for. I mean, there are people coming all the time, wanting information, and wanting to talk to me, or find out about the work. If I said yes to every one of them I would do nothing else whatsoever."

In 1994, Dr. Simpson was awarded the first William Nordberg Memorial Award for Earth Science. The Nordberg Award is given annually to an employee of the Goddard Space Flight Center who best exhibits broad scientific perspective, enthusiastic programmatic and technical leadership on the national and international levels, wide recognition by peers, and substantial research accomplishments in understanding Earth system processes that exemplified Dr. Nordberg's own career.

To hear Pat Greco, of the Employee and Organizational Development Office (Code 114), tell it, when candidates for the Nordberg Award were being reviewed, the choice of the recipient was, "...a no-brainer." Dr. Simpson was the obvious choice.

The program from the 1994 award ceremony stated that, "The...award [was] presented to Dr. Joanne Simpson for her scientific pioneering efforts, characterized by a remarkable series of original scientific contributions and a record of public service which has done much to advance the field of meteorology. Dr. Simpson's work has encompassed a wide range of observational theoretical and modeling studies. Her pioneering observational studies on trade wind clouds and the Ôhot tower' hypothesis helped to establish our basic understanding of the maintenance of the tropical circulation and heat balance. She pioneered the field of cloud modeling with the development of a 1dimensional cloud model, and has continued work in this area throughout her career as principal investigator on various cumulus cloud modeling projects. She has had extensive experience in planning and leading observational experiments on convective cloud systems. Dr. Simpson has long recognized the value of satellite observations for advancing our understanding of the tropics. As Project Scientist for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), she has led the effort on all aspects of the mission from its inception. Finally, Dr. Simpson has been a role model for women in science and engineering by being elected to the National Academy of Engineering and serving as President of the American Meteorological Society."

Clearly, Dr. Simpson is a heavy hitter in her profession. But there's much in her personal life in addition to her profession that has been instrumental in bringing her to where she is today.

Even with all the time she spends on professional activities, this 73-year-old mother and stepmother of five tries to balance her personal and professional lives. Indeed, when asked to describe the high point in her life, she lists three: When she married Bob Simpson, when her daughter was born, and when she won the Rossby Award. Reflecting upon her response, she notes that two of the three are personal matters. Dr. Simpson says that she feels she was a good mother, despite her need to work harder because she is a woman. With time, her children and their spouses have all turned out just fine, and she's proud of all of them. But she also says that she's a much better grandmother to five grandchildren than she was a mother. As she put it, "It's so much more fun and much easier to be a grandma!"

While she pays a lot of attention to her family, Dr. Simpson's main focus is still professional activities. When asked for a few closing comments, she chose to focus on this advice to young researchers: "The atmosphere and the oceans are very exciting both in terms of sailing on them and what they do in the way of disasters, and learning about how they move and behave, and although jobs are tight now, young people can still get PhD's and get jobs. Maybe the job market will recover. So, I would encourage a young person who is interested in scienceÑand particularly in weather and ocean scienceÑto go right ahead and get into it, but that they have to look for a field or a subfield where there are jobs. It ain't easy nowadays."

With that, Dr. Simpson returned to her desk to answer telephone calls about TRMM and about her American Meteorological Society dutiesÑand to finish her E-mail response to that sixth-grader who was looking for information.